Q: My company is really in hot water with one of our best customers. I can't
reveal exactly what happened Brian Gionta Sabres
Jersey , but suffice it to say that we really dropped the ball and
the customer is furious. I'm not even sure we can save the account. What's the
best way to get back in a customer's good graces after making such a
mistake?-- Charles W.

A: Without knowing the full story, Charles, I
can't give you a specific course of action, but let's start at the sharp end of
the uh-oh stick and work our way back to see if we can come with up some advice
that might help.

First off, it's important that you understand that the
magnitude of your mistake will determine the course of action you take to make
amends. If your company's error was such that it caused your customer a
significant amount of lost time or revenue, embarrassed them publicly, caused
damage to their reputation, or otherwise negatively affected their bottom line,
you may face legal repercussions that saying "I'm sorry" will not deter. If
that's the case you should consult an attorney immediately and prepare for the
worst. Whether or not the worst comes is irrelevant. You must be prepared for
it.

Now on to dealing with more minor offenses. As anyone who has read
this column for any length of time knows, I'm cursed with daughters. I used to
say I was blessed with daughters, then they learned to walk and talk. Blessed
quickly became cursed. Now my oldest daughter is an inch taller than me and
getting all lumpy in places I'd rather not think about. She's a sad case,
really. The poor kid needs an operation. She has a cellphone growing out of her
ear. But I digress

When she was a toddler she coined the
phrase Alexander
Mogilny Sabres Jersey , "Oop-see!" Whenever she did something
innocently destructive, like knock over a glass of orange juice on my new
computer keyboard or shove a Pop Tart in the VCR tape slot, she would look at me
with her huge brown eyes and say, "Oop-see!" My wife says there is a reason God
made kids cute. Oop-see moments are evidence that she is right.

Oop-see
meant, "Uh oh, I didn't mean to do that. I was wrong. I'll never do that again.
Forgive me? Love me? Buy me toys Oop-see worked like a charm every time. Now, I
certainly don't expect you to bat your eyes at your customer and say, "Oop-see!"
but consider the effect her words had on me. Instead of screaming at the top of
my lungs like I wanted to do (hey, have you ever tried to dig a Pop Tart out of
a VCR) I immediately softened and found myself actually taking her side. "Aw,
it's OK, really, we all make mistakes"

What my daughter had figured out
is that it's hard to stay mad at someone who admits a mistake Zemgus
Girgensons Jersey , sincerely apologizes for it, and vows never to
let it happen again. Little did I know this was only one of many tactics she
would employ over the years in her never-ending quest to wrap her daddy several
times around her little finger, but that's a whole different column.

Dale
Carnegie said it best: "Any fool can try to defend his or her mistakes - and
most fools do - but it raises one above the herd and gives one a feeling of
nobility and exultation to admit one's mistakes."

Carnegie and my
daughter were basically saying the same thing: When you (or your company) make a
mistake, no matter how large or small, the best thing you can do is quickly
admit the error of your ways and face the consequences, come what
may.

Here are a few things you can do to help set things right with your
customer.

Assemble the facts. The very first thing you should do is find
out what went wrong and why. Meet with your key people and gather the facts. Ask
specific questions like: What was the mistake? What caused it? Who was involved?
What could have been done to prevent the mistake from happening and what can be
done to prevent it from happening again in the future.

Put yourself in
your customer's shoes. I've been on both ends of the uh-oh stick and neither is
very comfortable. My company has dropped the ball on occasion and we have also
been negatively impacted when one of our vendors did the same. Put yourself in
your customer's shoes and consider what could be said or done to remedy the
situation from their point of view.

Take responsibility for the actions
of your company. In my role as a company president there have been times when
I've had to call up a customer and confess that a mistake was made, and as
president it was also my responsibility to take the heat for it. Remember,
you're the head cheese, Charles, you get to sit behind the big desk and take
home the nice paycheck. You're also the one that gets to mop up when your
employees makes a mess. It just goes with the job.

Do not place the blame
on specific employees. No matter how tempting it is to put the blame on specific
people in your organization (even if that's where the blame lies), do not do it.
It is unprofessional, counterproductive and can backfire on you Zach Bogosian
Jersey , especially if the person you're blaming reports directly
to you. Saying something like "My sales manager is always making mistakes like
this!" is not going to make your customer feel any better. To the contrary, such
statements will make the customer question your leadership ability and the
quality of all your employees, not just the one that made the mistake. If you
don't have faith in your company and employees, why should your
customer?